Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks

AT&T Park, San Francisco, CA

So I don't follow baseball much, but baseball stadium carry so much historical significance for a city (Fenway, Wrigley, etc.) that I love visiting different ballparks. I had some time to kill one day as I was waiting for a bus, so I decided to visit the AT&T Park where the San Francisco Giant play. This stadium is beautiful and highlights a lot of what makes San Francisco great. It's right next to the bay, and it makes for a great place to sight see and run. I kind of hate the San Francisco Giants since they did beat the Rangers in the World Series in 2010 (I guess I don't care THAT much since I'm a bandwagoner for the Rangers anyway), but I do love Brian Wilson and his beard.  Check out possibly my favorite Taco Bell commercials - second maybe only to the Yo Quiero Chihuahua - with Brian Wilson below.






Notes:

- I've given up on trying to edit using RAW files. They usually don't end up looking good, and they always have random blur spots. It's really annoying. I'm still keeping them, though, and they're a huge waste of space, but maybe one day i'll learn how to properly use them.

Viva Las Vegas

Las Vegas is a crazy place. Great friends in a wild city makes an absolutely exhausting vacation. We stayed at a cheaper hotel far away from the main strip called Circus Circus. Pros: It was cheap and had cheap gambling. Cons: It was really far away, and we had to spend quite a bit of money on taxis. There's not much else I can say because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (also my parents read this blog). I didn't have as much time as I wanted to to take pictures, though, but I did get a few cool shots.

Paris Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

Traveling Companions

 

Lulu and Travis

 

Nathan

 

Kevin

 

Christy

 

Ashley and Tanisha - Tanisha wouldn't let me take a picture of her, but I think this picture sums up these two goofballs perfectly.

 

Albert

Notes
- Somehow I forgot to take a picture of Cindy whose birthday was this weekend. I don't know how that happened... Happy Birthday, Cindy!

Eternal sunshine

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, Fort Worth, Texas

To improve as a person, you need to have higher risk tolerance. Higher risk tolerance allows you to see the world in different ways. Don't afraid to make mistakes. That's something you have to remind yourself everyday. Don't be afraid to feel pain and to feel sadness. We all strive for perfection when perfection can never be attained. There's no reason to crave perfection. We all need a bit more whim in our lives. We all need to learn to be imperfect. 

I hopped off the plane at LAX, with my dream and my cardigan

I really love the city of Los Angeles. It's a wonderfully diverse city with great food, great art, and great beaches.  The first morning that I was in Los Angeles, I went running along the Venice and Santa Monica beaches. It was refreshing breathing in that ocean breeze and seeing all the unique things that LA beaches had to offer.  My favorite thing about LA, though, is that there are so many different areas to explore. Each region has its own flavor and style, and I find it hard to believe that anyone could ever get bored of this city.  I will definitely be back in the near future; there's a lot more I need to explore and eat.

 Beautiful view of the city from Griffith Observatory

Food Highlights
- Lamb burger @ Gjelina
- Umami/truffle burger @ Umami Burger
- Green Tea Donut and Koko Churro @ Cafe Dulce
- Chicken and Waffles @ Roscoe's
- French Dip @ Phillipe's
- Ramen and Pork Cutlet @ Daikokuya
- Short Rib Taco and Calamari Taco @ Kogi

 Traveling Companions

Corey - Huge thanks to Corey for letting me crash at his place and taking me around. Ironically, I wasn't able to get a good shot of the one guy that I was hanging around the most in LA. The best I could get was this photo of him at the LACMA sipping on coffee.

JM

Hamidah


Notes
- I'm really bad at depth of field photography. Most of my photos of food have been awful.
- I've been shooting in both RAW and jpeg, but I'm not very good at editing out of RAW; it's really frustrating. I'm not sure if I should continue to shoot in RAW since it's just a waste of space if I'm not going to use it.

Solitude

Muir Woods, California

What a feeling it would be to lie down on the soft underbrush of Muir Woods and look up and see the thousand year old redwoods cocooning you. In solitude you hear the soft trickle of the river next to you. Nothing moves, and you take comfort in the woods that seem to not change in a world where everything changes in a blink of an eye. Alone with your thoughts, all you can do is think.

Sigur Ros - Untitled 1

I was trying to remember your name

I was told that I should write in this blog a bit more. Truth be told, I'm not very confident in my writing skills which is why I rarely post anything that's not a picture, but hopefully writing in this blog will make me a better writer.


I've been trying hard to keep up with my new year resolutions this year which includes taking and posting at least one interesting picture each weekend. I was lucky enough this weekend to have some friends from college come visit and keep me motivated to go out and explore the city.  Highlights of where we went include Golden Gate Park, Haight/Ashbury, Stanford, and Muir Woods.  The picture I've chosen to post today is from Golden Gate Park. The moon was especially bright and started to come out early in the evening.  I especially like this picture because it's as if the tree is trying to pluck the moon out of the sun-burnt sky. You can also make out specks of the city below in the bottom left corner.

 

Golden Gate Park, Stow Lake, San Francisco, CA 

Traveling Companions

Mark

 Tiffany

 Amanda














Interesting things around the web

The Instagram Effect  - I really dislike Instagram (and apps like it) because I think it's overused and used inappropriately, but Wired has a really good article about how it's actually helping people appreciate photography.  While I still don't love Instagram, I do agree with a lot of the points made in this post, and I think it's worth a read.


Notes:


- I'm also adding a new section to my post called "Traveling Companions". I want to get better at taking photos of people, and I also want to document the people I was around when my photo were taken. The photos in this section today aren't very good. Most of them feature people looking downward (mostly atdinner menus) because I'm not really comfortable yet taking pictures of people straight up.  Also, I don't really like photos where people are conscious of someone taking a picture of them; I prefer candid shots.

- I haven't forgotten about building out a new website. I'm trying hard to figure a good layout to display my photos. I want something that's easy to use and allows you to display photos in high resolution. http://instagre.at/ is a great example of a design that I really like. I'm not quite sure how long coding something like that would take, but regardless it's a project I'm excited to start.

The cretins cloning and feeding

Lombard St, San Francisco, CA

Life is like that you know

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

You have cat eyes

Plano, Texas

Subject: Potter